By the time you read this, Throwing Muses and Pixies will be back in
Boston, recovering from the exertions of their european tour. Determined
to see them off in style, the Stud brothers joined them last week in
Birmingham to bid them farewell and congratulate them on the success of
"House Tornado" and
"Surfer Rosa"
and ended up in a parking lot with
Black Francis and Kristen Hersh discussing God and the brownies...

It's tuesday, 7.15 in the evening. We're sitting in a stationary white
van (a Renault we think) and talking to The Pixies. The van sits sullenly
between a parking-lot and Burberries Birmingham's smaller but equally
lurid version of Cinderella's. Inside, Throwing Muses are soundchecking.
At 7.18, Kim (Mrs John Murphy) offers us a beer, holding out two yellow,
distinctly teutonic cans they'd accidentally imported from Germany. By
7.25 we're talking about God. That's what we're like. We don't f***
about. Charles, otherwise known as Black Francis, became a Born Again
Christian so soon after being "birthed" he wasn't actually granted the
luxury of testing his resolve in the wilderness the rest of us call Life.
Consequently, at the tender age of 17, he Died Again. Now he's just "your
usual college dropout agnostic". David Lovering, who drums, thinks he
should at least say he believes in God, and does. "I should say I believe
in God because I don't wanna go to Hell for saying no." Charles reminds
him that God, as is usual with the omnipotent, doesn't see it that way
and will doubtless damn him to Hell for lying anyway. Joey, whose placid
smile disguises all manner of hideous things, says that he ought to say
yes. It's bad to say no. . . but I have to say no for the moment." Kim,
who's finished her beer, tells us she does believe in God. "But, um, I
don't think God believes in me."

Later, onstage, Kim is so thoroughly and marvellously lost, she appears
to have given herself up to something higher. Or lower. Whatever it is,
it's certainly not God. She's entrusted her body to something that twists
her into odd shapes, some thing that sets her feet together, then pulls
her up to tiptoe, extends her neck, shoves her head sideways in a
blasphemous imitation of Princess Di and has her spine behaving like some
giant wayward centipede. Her face is graced with a wan and beatific
smile; it's almost as if she were swinging merrily from some invisible
gallows. Charles, soaked in sweat, occasionally approaches her to whisper
some private joke. More often, though, he stares hungrily out over the
crowd, howling a howl that reverberates through the plastic foliage, that
breaks out of his gaping mouth as an explosion that threatens to crack
the cocktail glasses and distort his face into a shapeless mass of
trembling, reddened flesh.

'I like to think it's possible to be in touch with old things, ancient
things, where you can say to yourself, "I am experiencing the same
feeling as somebody who didn't even have a language felt way back then."
It would be nice to have some physical unknown place to go' -Black Francis

Charles, whose first time this is in Europe, manages to articulate some
English provincial grudge generally held by Birmingham's Pixie People
against establishments like Burberries (smart dress essential). If ever
there was a band unsuited to playing this multi-mirrored cattle market
it's . . . Throwing Muses. Not The Pixies, not quite The Pixies. We can
still succumb to The Pixies in a way faintly comparable to our submission
to white dance and lager. We can feel them viscerally, en joy them
vicariously. There's a part of The Pixies that invites the hooligan
element. But, if there's a faith there, it's certainly not one that'll
make sense of the Cosmos. The Muses instead appeal to a more ascetic
sensibility. They also believe in God.

"Yeah, I do," Kristen had told us at 4.30 that same Tuesday, "though it's
hard to say the word. I feel this spirituality floating around my body,
just because the only books I had to bring with me were these New Age
spirituality books, or books that've been republished under the title
'New Age'. They have these goonie covers and stuff, they're really neat.
All I can think about is reincarnation and Zen and feminine psychology."
We found this unsurprising only because we'd yet to meet an American who
didn't believe in God. Remember, it was 4.30 and we hadn't met The Pixies
yet.

Leslie Langston, who'd just bought a yellow beret in London, agreed with
Kristen, though she was more insistent and very much more specific. "I
believe in God. I believe in God because, if I didn't, I'm almost
positive at this moment I'd be dead. Whether he truly exists or not
doesn't matter, just my belief in him has allowed me to come out of a lot
of weird things. It's not necessarily a Christian god Kristen nodded. "I
can't believe how anyone could embrace every aspect of a doctrine. I
prefer the idea of myth. It's fascinating how a myth is just a
conglomeration of things, stories that have been purified in the
retelling until they speak for everybody. Religion would be great if it
did that."

Purified, not sanitised, The Pixies do that and so, too, do Throwing
Muses. While pop dies from its sense of fair play, rock thrives on its
savage sense of self, a selfishness that lends it both enigma and,
paradoxically, poignancy, a selfishness that, taken to its logical
conclusion, has rejected even the identity of glamour and rendered both
the Muses and The Pixies literally imageless. They're now as naked as
rock could ever possibly be. What we see though, what we hear, what we
ultimately understand, are the fragments of a whole comprehended in a
block unconscious communion where the images we take (they're not so much
given) are embroidered by our own fears and anxieties

Close your eyes tonight and Throwing Muses' laced darkness creeps into
you, its patterns pulsing, a cluster of welcome and unwelcome sensations
swarming over you, inviting misery then intruding upon it. What's left
afterwards is a heap of broken images - a father's hands pressed against
eyes that refuse to see so much pain, screaming mouths and chests
convulsed by weeping, the torpor of a child with an old man's face.
Throwing Muses say their humour's blacker than that of the Pixies. We
think it's so black it's almost undetectable. But, somewhere in the
maelstrom, you can dance. Certainly it's no surefooted stomp, more an
arhythmic hop or, like in Birmingham, a heaving pogo.

'I write my songs mostly in front of a mirror. I don't know why, I've
always done it like that. When l get tired of the mirror, I stand in the
bathtub and draw the shower curtain...' - Black Francis

The Pixies are no "nicer" but they are, probably because of what Simon
Reynolds called "their surrealist phonetic poetry", funnier. Funny, that
is, if you find a bloated stomach suspended from a skeletal frame funny
(which, by the way, we do - it's so hugely, horrendously absurd). The
Pixies lyrics are often so introspective they seem to believe only in
their own perverse logic. They're blacked-out humour. The Muses, to their
credit, still preserve undiplomatic relations with some Outside. The
Pixies are simply way, way out. "Absolutely, absolutely," says Charles,
"there you go. But at the same time I want to command some faith in the
audience, I want them to be intrigued, absolutely curious about my music
and who I am. That's what makes other music attractive to me, it's the
hole you get sucked into when you really get into a song. When you play
'Gimme Shelter' all the analyses about whether rock 'n' roll is
legitimate, all the stuff we talk about every day, when you play the
song, none of that matters. All that matters is the song. That's it.
'Gimme Shelter'." "It's an entirely physical thing," Kim continues.
"There's a little thing in the middle of your head that starts to buzz. I
call it an earqasm. It releases a sort of chemical and then you get
chillbumps or a swoosh feeling. It's physical." Charles has an especially
physical way of writing songs. "I write my songs mostly in front of a
mirror. I don't know why, I've always done it like that. When I get tired
of the mirror, I stand in the bathtub and draw the shower curtain. Or
sometimes I stand very, very close to a wall and I write them like that.
I don't even write my lyrics down, I don't pick up a pen, hardly ever.
Seventy per cent is just in my head. I don't know why, maybe it's because
I like mirrors. I like my face." We look at Charles, smiling over the
Renault's passenger seat like a Californian Billy Bunter and, now
remembering, try to reconcile that face with the scarlet-faced ape
glaring glassy-eyed from the stage "I like to think it's possible to be
in touch with old things, ancient things, where you can say to yourself,
'I am experiencing the same feeling as somebody who didn't even have a
language felt way back when.' It would be nice to have some physical
unknown place to go."

It's five past eight and The Pixies have just discovered they won't be
able to soundcheck. Burberries is beginning to fill up with a healthily
mismatched cross-section of young Brummies. If we hadn't been sitting in
the van, we might have toasted this easy exhibition of fragmented times.
Kim is remembering the first time she heard Throwing Muses. "I remember
the way I felt when I first heard the Muses on the radio. I couldn't
believe someone was making that kind of original music. I thought they
were great. It was so much more interesting, so much more different to
anything I'd heard before." Sunday at the Town And Country Club would be
the last time The Pixies and Muses shared the same stage Commercially,
they've outgrown each other. We wonder, Kim, will you miss them? "God,
yeah, Kristen and Tanya crack me up. They've had the weirdest lives, they
are so weird. Tanya told me a story about how they did segments of the
'Captain Kangaroo Show'. And 'Sesame Street', too. She talked about the
'Captain Kangaroo Show' and how perverse the people were there. She was
just 12 years old. She said something was going on there one guy was an
alcoholic, another guy was a child molester, somebody killed themselves -
it was just weird, okay? She was told in one scene she had to peel back a
banana in front of the camera. She had to look up - you should see her do
it. she looks about 12 anyway - and she had to peel and eat the banana.
It was perverse." "That's where I can see their music coming from",
"David explains. "It's very neurotic. They may seem relaxed but it's
coming from the inside. It seems like when you're watching them you're
watching their insides come out in the sound."

Earlier the Muses had returned the compliment. Or pre-empted it. "I
worship them." Tanya had said. It had occurred to us then that Tanya
looks like an apprentice Bangle. Only much, much younger. "I always tend
to worship people that I know which is probably a really sick thing to
do. I worship Kim right now, Kim is my goddess. But I do tend to worship
people that I meet. It's probably misplaced, I should try to put it where
it belongs." "But they are way the coolest," enthused Kristen, and, in
spite of the press and because of the songs, we're still surprised about
just how much she does enthuse. "There's not a single person in the van
we don't love . . . in most ways. It's been hard playing after them
because I feel they get so much done when they play. It's like 'Oh, what
else do you need to say now?' I get kinda lax about going up there. I
have to kind of get into our set while I remember why we're there too.
"Then again, if you have a bad band go on before you, you just can't
remember what music is supposed to be. I love having that spark there
already when we go on. I never get bored with them, although they will
often do 'Gigantic' in the set, and then do it as an encore and then the
club will play it afterwards. We're going to learn to play it too so we
can do it as an encore and hum it between songs." Dave Narcizo, the
Muses' drummer and, incidentally, one of only three intelligent drummers
in music, will talk about almost anything and was apoplectic when it came
to The Pixies. "Dave," patronised Kristen," says they take a standard of
rock and twist it into something obscene. Say that Dave, that's good."
Well, Dave? "Talk about dark sexuality, Dave, dark sexuality from the
heartland of America." Dave? "Say 'Cement-ridden angst from Beantown',
Dave, say that we influenced them. Say that." Come on, Dave. "The Pixies?
Jerks." Jerks? No. Dave, wacky, that's what they are. At least that's
what we've been assured. We remain unconvinced. They are funny, there is
always that belly laugh but . . . back to the present.

'Yeah, I think our songs are pretty funny," says Charles. "I don't think
so, Charlie", Kim disagrees. "It bothers me when people go 'All this is a
big joke'. I don't think it is. Dave compromises by saying it's a
"distasteful kind of humour. But Kim's determined not to be seen as a
clown. "But that's not what controls it. Is that the first thing that
stands out, because it's not for me. I don't want it to be. I don't mind
people thinking we're funny but that's not where it's coming from." So,
if The Pixies aren't funny, what are they? David thinks they're confused
and serious. Kim says they're boring. Charles reckons they're bored,
confused and unhappy. And Joey, who will spend a good deal of the set
laughing, says they're horny. "I am f**king horny. Jesus, seeing the
countryside makes me horny. It doesn't make me funny".

This has us wondering whether Joey spent as much time enjoying the
services offered on those stickers so fashionable now in West London
phone boxes, as Kristen has done memorising them. What, we'd asked her,
had she liked about them. "The hookers' messages in the phone boxes? They
were great. 'Madame Pain, pain for three hours'. That was great. 'Mizz
Agony, I hurt you, I hurt you, I hurt you till you die'. Yeah, I'll give
her a call. She sounds cute". Joey would never go in for that sort of
thing. He is, after all, Mister Pain. "I'd really like to tie somebody
up, tie her up and tickle her to the point of death. Or until she begs,
begs for it, starts crying 'Oh God, I want it. give it to me now!' That'd
be f**king great, I'd love to see that. You guys would too, if you'd
admit it." We admit it, but only under duress, only really to proffer
Joey a brief moment of company in what we hope is a desperately lonely
obsession. He's right. He's horny and it doesn't make him funny.

It was 5.15 and the Muses were reminiscing about schooldays. "Me and
Kristen both got kicked out of Brownies after a year," said Tanya. "Isn't
that awful. I embezzled Brownie funds, I stole cookie money. It was pure
pressure though, it wasn't my idea." "I wasn't thrown out for stealing,"
confessed Kristen, "I was just a jerk. I had a bad attitude, I didn't
have a Brownie attitude." Tanya then regaled us with the sad tale of a
Brownie in exile wandering the streets after school, searching in vain
for a welcoming camp-fire. "I didn't want my parents to find out I'd been
kicked out of Brownies. I'd wear my uniform to school and then walk
around for two hours afterwards. I was the Lone Brownie." Leslie's tale
was sadder still. "I could've been a Brownie, but I couldn't fit into any
of the Brownie dresses. I was so fat, I had six rolls of fat so I
couldn't be a Brownie. Later, when I slimmed down, I was a pom-pom girl."
Dave intervened. "I used to wear those little socks with the tassles on
them. And that little tie." It seemed terribly unfair that Dave was
allowed to join the Brownies while Leslie had been . . . "That's the Boy
Scouts, assholes. I hated it. I hated everything about it. I hated having
to go camping, I hated having to earn merit badges. But I didn't have the
guts to quit, I just couldn't do it. Oh God, the miserable, miserable
camping trips where it'd be freezing cold and raining and they'd stick
you in a pup-tent with two other people and it'd always be someone you
hated. I had to stay with one of those scout-masters' sons and he brought
all this junk food. And we were in this tiny tent and he threw all this
junk food out the door and we had 13 raccoons circling our tent having
these vicious fights. And this kid's screaming for his father, screaming
and screaming. It was cold and raining and you smelled of smoke and you
had to cook your own food and wash up and walk all day and when you got
back, they'd call you a lazy bum and say you'd only joined the Scouts for
the trips. And I used to think 'If only you'd let me not do this I would
kiss you. I was a really wimpy kid," One look at Dave tells you he's
cerebrally inclined. He's really not built to be a Scout or, as we
suggested rather playfully, a burgeoning running-back in the High School
football team singlehandedly steamrolling the opposition. "Nope. I was a
pom-pom girl as well."

'The hookers' messages in the phone boxes? They were great. "Madame pain,
pain for three hours." That was great' - Kristen Hersh

Seems reasonable. Throwing Muses aren't really a "jock" band. They have a
wonderful ability to frighten off dunderheads. Leslie giggled: "We scared
off a bunch of jocks once, at a club called The Pelham in Newport."
"Yeah, that's right," remembered Tanya, "as soon as we got on stage about
six people went 'Girls! The Go-Go's! The Bangles!' They got real close to
the stage and tried to look up our dresses. Then we started playing and
they went. Three songs into our set and everybody had backed off. There
was a big space in front of the stage except for a few of our friends who
hadn't noticed." What were they afraid of - three giggling girls and a
pom-pom boy? No. we think they showed the sensitivity only dunderheads
can - they recognised the lunatic giant the Muses keep battened down so
well in interviews. And what they heard as they lumbered back to their
Buds were the knockings and batterings giants make when they're let
loose. The Muses are a very, very hard group. In every sense of the word.
. . Kristen agreed, but couldn't really see the difficulty. "I read about
this woman who believed she had a hook in her head that her husband used
to use to drag her around. Now, he thought she was crazy but that was her
perception, and our perception is our reality. That woman perceived a
hook in her head so she really had one. You have to go with the
assumption that there's a hook inside her head that needs to be treated
and I feel our songs are like that, they need to be treated, they call
for themselves to be seen in their own peculiar light."

Like Charles says: "There you go, there you go right there. The best rock
music in the world is the stuff that's introverted, it all has to do with
the personality making it. As soon as you start taking into account other
personalities you pan out, you're bland." And the most introverted music
is the noise that deals with pain, pain being the only thing that really
senses nothing but itself. Pleasure cannot enjoy itself in the same way
pain can because what it enjoys is something beside itself.

It's 8.45, a quarter of an hour before the best gig of the year, and
Kim's handing us another Germanic lager. 'What are you guys talking about
over there?" Charles looks up laughing. "Heavy, heavy shit."